StarWars’ Coolest Gadgets — And Their Real-World Analogs

Blasters, robots, holograms. There are probably a hundred different awesome technologies featured in George Lucas’ first foray into the intergalactic, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Some are totally out there and still hundreds, if not thousands, of years away. But some of the gadgets presented in the film have made their way into the real world in one form or another.

So to celebrate Star Wars' 35th anniversary the Gadget Lab way, we decided to gather nine of our favorite pieces of tech from a galaxy far, far away and see how they compare with their real-world equivalents.

Above:

Lightsabers

If you watched last week’s podcast (hint: if you haven’t, you should check it out) you’ll know that Luke’s trusty weapon, the lightsaber, is real now – well, in some capacity.

Wicked Lasers’ LaserSaber is, for all intents and purposes, a lightsaber. It's got a 32-inch-long polycarbonate wand fused to an aircraft-grade aluminum hilt. You plug one of Wicked Lasers' Spyder 3 lasers into the hilt, and voila, a lightsaber.

Unfortunately, this lightsaber isn’t going to be slicing through Sith lords anytime soon – in fact, Wicked Lasers doesn’t recommend you use a LaserSaber for fencing or sword play at all. Laser weapons in general are still in the research phases. But if your opponent stared directly into it, you could inflict some retinal damage. Yowch!

In this scene, Luke sees and wields a light saber for the first time.

Bipedal, Multilingual Robots

C-3PO can get a bit annoying with his incessant harping, but if you need a companion who can walk by your side and translate alien languages (six million different languages, to be exact) on the fly, he’s the 'bot to turn to.

As far as humanoid robots go, the latest version of the Honda Asimo robot is one of the most advanced models available outside of a research lab. The ASIMO has a “high-level postural balancing capability” and can run, hop, serve tea, and perform all sorts of other actions. It’s autonomous, so it’s able to take in information from its surroundings in order to decide how to behave next. Unfortunately for intergalactic jetsetters, ASIMO is the “seen but not heard” type of robot. At least for now.

But Darpa is on the hunt for a C-3PO-type translator robot as part of its Broad Operational Language Translation, or BOLT, research initiative. So yeah, a real-life, walking, talking, translating C-3PO is totally happening.

In the shot above, C-3PO explains to Luke’s uncle, Owen Lars, about his translating abilities.

Hologram Messages

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope. It’s quite possibly one of the most memorable moments in A New Hope: When R2-D2 beams a small, holographic version of Princess Leia pleading for help from the Jedi master.

Pretty much the closest thing we’ve seen to this sort of technological magic is Hologram Tupac, seen at Coachella this year. As further proof, someone even made a mashup of Hologram Tupac cut with scenes from Star Wars. The hologram isn’t technically a true hologram, but instead a mix of previously recorded live footage and CGI reflected on panes of glass, or in this case custom-made foil, in a century-old trick called Pepper’s Ghost.

Hopefully holograms will start getting personal, Princess Leia-style in the not-too-distant future – like an iPhone with a tiny projector for HologramTime.

Room-Sized Trash Compactor

One of the most iconic scenes in the Star Wars films is when Luke, Han, Chewie and Leia are almost crushed in the giant trash compactor. As the walls begin to close in on the protagonists, C-3PO and R2-D2 attempt to keep their human friends from being mushed to death. The droids succeed, but their cries of joy are mistaken by C-3PO as the cries of a group of friends being squished by a large machine. Classic comedy.

Building an entire room for the sole purpose of smashing debris is overkill. It may make for a great cinema, but in our universe, it doesn’t make much sense. Instead we have dumpster-sized compactors that could potentially squish a band of rebels. The compactors are smaller and probably not as well lit, but they get the job done.

In this shot, Han, Luke, and Leia try to brace against the walls closing in on them.

Landspeeder

Zipping around the desert in a landspeeder was probably Luke’s only escape from the toils of working on his aunt and uncle’s moisture farm. Frankly, moisture farming sounds like the lamest job in the universe. The vehicle used “repulsorlift” technology to float along the surface and was sold by Luke to pay for passage to Alderaan.

Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to master the anti-gravity technology needed to create a landspeeder-type vehicle. The closest we’ve come to a floating vehicle is the hovercraft. By creating a cushion of high pressure air between the craft and surface, a hovercraft can travel over land and water. Since Tatooine was short on bodies of water – hence the moisture farming – Luke’s landspeeder was never depicted floating over lakes and rivers.

Score one for our universe.

In the shot above, Luke and C-3PO hop in a landspeeder to search for R2-D2.

Virtual Sparring Partner

Aboard the Millennium Falcon, Obi Wan Kenobi helps train Luke in the art of lightsabery using a small hoverbot floating and darting through the air. Luke wields his lightsaber and tries to use the force to defend himself against occasional lasers being shot in his direction.

We don’t have gravity-defying robots like that, or laser-shooting robots, but what we do have are things like virtual reality and gesture control. The latter in particular is useful for honing your lightsaber-wielding abilities with the Microsoft Kinect and a game like Kinect Star Wars.

If you want to practice defending yourself against virtual enemies, the Kinect uses depth-sensing technology to pinpoint each of your joints, so you don’t even have to wield an actual lightsaber – take that, Luke. You also don’t have to worry about being zapped with that round floating robot’s lasers, which is a pro in my book.

In the shot above, Luke battles his sparring robot with the blast shield down on his helmet.

Simple Service Droids

As a child, one of the gadgets in Star Wars that most tickled me were those little simple repair droids scurrying across the vast floors of the Death Star. Fun, non-threatening, the MSE-6 series repair droid or mouse droid is mostly used for delivery and maintenance.

It’s small, rolls around on the floor, and cats absolutely love it. Rather than being used for transport of course, the Roomba’s single purpose is in cleaning your grungy floors, suctioning up dust bunnies and pet hair into its innards. It roams around the house almost drunkenly, sometimes getting trapped amongst nests of cables on the floor. But there’s no way around it: The Roomba is today’s version of the Death Star’s little autonomous repair droids.

In the scene above, an MSE-6 repair droid zips along the floor of the Death Star.

Millennium Falcon

The YT-1300 freighter ship owned by Han Solo was used primarily for smuggling before it was chartered by Luke and Obi Wan. One man’s smuggled goods are another man’s transported items. The Falcon was a entrepreneur's delivery vehicle.

Without the constant worry of the Empire shutting them down, the Space X Dragon spaceship launched from Earth on Tuesday. The maiden voyage of the private-sector space vehicle is filled with tests to make sure the craft is worthy of delivering cargo to the ISS. Sure, it doesn’t have a Wookiee co-pilot, but it’s doing the same job as the Falcon and the name is just as awesome.

In this shot, the gang gets ready to board the Millennium Falcon and leave Tatooine in the dust.

Bionic Body Parts

It’s not revealed in a New Hope, but Darth Vader is little more than a torso, head and one-and-a-half arms. Obi Wan tells Luke that, “He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil.” No wonder Vader is so committed to the Dark Side. Jabs like that from your former mentor probably hit a little too close to home. Way to be a jerk, Obi Wan.

Still, Vader is able to overcome his disability with the help of technology and is able to walk and handle a lightsaber with his bionic limbs. Sure he uses his mechanically powered mobility for evil, but he’s not letting his affliction keep him down.